Monday, November 9, 2009

Ceritera 260

Mahathir in Paul Krugman's writing:

Some of the Asians, notably Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir, had a ready answer: conspiracy. Mahathir, indeed, argued not only that the panic in Asia was deliberately engineered by big financial operators like George Soros but also that Soros himself was acting on instruction from the U.S government, which wanted to cut assertive Asians down to size. As time passed, Mahathir's demonization of hedge funds started to look a bit less silly than it did when he first began his ranting. Indeed, the hole of hedge funds now look important enough to rate a whole chapter in this book. But that role become important mainly in 1998 (by which time, incidentally, the activities of Soros and others were very much contrary to U.S. policy wishes); as story about how the crisis began, conspiracy theory doesn't wash. (page 95)